THE Bureau of Fire Protection advised prospective bidders of personal protective equipment to comply with the mandatory requirements especially the electronic filing and payment system to avoid disqualification.

BFP officer-in-charge Chief Supt. Samuel Perez urged the Bureau of Internal Revenue to investigate bidders participating in the procurement of PPEs or firefighting gears or to any government biddings of goods and services if they comply with the eFPS filing.

The BIR, Perez said, should also check the records of participating companies if they are capable of supplying the needed products or services.

Bidders should see to it that requirements are in place and complied to prevent a similar result in the BFP’s 2010 bidding of PPEs which went into naught following a failure of bidding was declared.

The P242.8 million-contract to supply firefighting gears to the BFP was supposedly won by Kolonwel Company.

However, upon reviewing the findings of the Bids and Awards Committee, Perez found out that the winning bidder submitted at least three fraudulent documents thus the declaration of a failure of bidding.

This resulted in the Kolonwel filing charges against the BFP chief before the Office of the Ombudsman.

At present, the P242.8M bidding of BFP-PPEs is now in the jurisdiction of the Department of Budget and Management.

Perez advised those who are interested to participate to comply with the needed requirements to bid the procurement of 4,197 pieces of fire helmet, sets of fire coats and trousers, pairs of fire gloves and pairs of fire boots.      Joel dela Torre